Putting Old Men Out To Pasture - The Tragedy Of A Man Who Hung In There A Bit Too Long

The Development Council was a private non-profit agency generously funded by the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie Foundations to make the world a better place, and Henry Feder was one of its most durable executives.  As a manager, Vice President, Senior Vice President, and finally Executive Vice President, Harry Feder had made his way up the corporate ladder, failing to get the top spot because by the time he was ready times had changed, and Letitia Jackson, a black woman from the Ozarks, was appointed in his stead. 

At first angry and frustrated at the decision, Harry, a good soldier, knew that he had many more years to give to the organization and the world's impoverished, so he swallowed his bile and his pride, smiled, and returned to work.  As a matter of fact he redoubled his efforts, staying at the office well after hours and arriving before sunup. 

His wife of many decades was worried at this frenetic burst of activity.  After all, her husband was well into his elder years and should be giving some thoughts to retirement, and this St. Vitus' dance didn't augur well.  He was a changed man who had lost the sense of balance that made him a pillar of the firm, and was given to Tourette's Syndrome barking about 'that woman...my rightful place...my legacy...'.  Try as she might to calm him down, his agitation only increased. 

The new President, Letitia Jackson, one morning brought a bowl of fresh strawberries and cream into his office.  'I thought you might like these', she said, scooping the ripest, most succulent pieces onto a plate, garnishing it with a generous dollop of creme fraiche, and passing it to him. 

A bit flustered and annoyed at the unannounced interruption, Harry forced a smile, managed a 'Thank You', and waited for the woman to speak.  

'You have been a pillar of our community here at the Council for, let's see, going on fifty years; and have contributed mightily to our efforts to make a difference.  Without you we could never have managed the remarkable improvement in education, health, and welfare that is now part of our proud history.'

Here Letitia sat back in her chair, wiped a small blot of cream from her lips, leaned forward and said, 'But Harry, there comes a time when all good things must come to an end'.  A blunt woman with a new attitude and approach to the Council's business, she was not one to beat around the bush.  'Have you thought of retirement?'

He looked at the President with a vacant, gaping look. He couldn't believe his ears.  He was stupefied by the callousness of the remark.  How could she, this affirmative action upstart have the gall to even suggest such a thing.  He would retire when and where he wanted, when he was good and ready, and no.....Here he stopped himself in mid-thought.  He was veering into inappropriate territory, no-no land and if he said what he was thinking, he would be cashiered on the spot. 

'As you know, our retirement plan is very generous', she said, 'and you will never want for comfort'. 

Immediately he started formulating a counter attack.  Ageism, that's what it was, pure and simple, getting rid of the old boxes in the storeroom, replacing the tried and true with the acned and inexperienced.  He would have none of it, not if he could help it. 

'Think it over', Letitia said, slowly rising from the deep leather chair, one of set that Harry thought gave his office tenure - an appropriateness and sign of thoughtful intellectual conservatism.  She rose with some difficulty in fact, for she had grown quite hippy since her divorce, but took it out on the chair and vowed to get rid of the bloody thing once Harry was gone. 

The gossip in the office began with the bowl of strawberries and cream.  There was no way that that could augur anything but curtains for the old man in the corner office.  He was history, and from that moment on he was treated differently - with respect, of course, but as a man on his way out, past his pull-by date, a bit ratty around the edges, and history. 

'Of course you can stay here for as long as you like, and we have created the position of Counsellor Emeritus for you, non-salaried of course and with smaller accommodations, but a place where you can continue your remarkably productive work'; and so it was that Harry moved to the broom closet, a windowless office in the back with a fan, a trash can, and a Development Council pen.   

Now, most people would have gotten the message, warmly accepted a gold watch and toasts from colleagues and gone gracefully out to pasture; but Harry was different.  He simply could not let go.  There was too much still to do, to be accomplished, to contribute.  However, as is usually the case, he was the last one to know that he was no longer making sense, that his paragraphs piled up one on top of the other in a prolix mess, that his ideas were stuck in some aged time of no earthly use. 

So he cranked out paper after paper, each more febrile and incomprehensible, more voluble and wordy, each an everyone signed, sealed, and delivered to the President who dumped them in the trash on receipt. 

'Where's Harry', one of his co-workers asked one day, remarking that she hadn't seen him in quite some time; and on investigation there he was, slumped over his desk, as dead as a doornail.  His death was a minor embarrassment to the organization, letting a former employee, a respected one at that, die in such an unceremonious manner and letting his body sit there for a day without notice; but it was soon forgotten as such things are in the whirlwind of moving on. 

'It was a fitting end, that, dying in his traces like a dray horse plowing his last furrow' said one former colleague; but others thought that Harry should have seen the end coming and spent his final days on a beach in South Florida getting a tan. 

An apocryphal story given the old man in the White House recently pushed out the door because he didn't realize he had gone way past his pull-by date, and suffered the ignominy of the broom closet? 

Perhaps, but life has no lessons despite our wish that there were some.  Harry was just a schlub following some personal Holy Grail when he should have been playing shuffleboard, not a whole lot different from the rest of us who think we are so great until the curtain falls to no applause whatsoever.